Garden Tub to Roll-In Shower for Arcola Veterans
When the side of a tub turns into something you need help getting over, the bathroom has to change. We take out the corner garden tub and its deck, lower the slab where the new shower goes, and set every bar, valve and doorway around the way the person using the room really moves.
Veteran BuiltArcola, Texas
Doing this work inside Arcola, and just outside it
Recessing a slab and moving a drain is permitted work. If the house sits inside Arcola’s city limits, the City of Arcola issues that permit and sends its inspector before the trench is backfilled, and we book around that visit so the bathroom is not left open waiting on it. Past the city line there is no city permit to pull, and we build the floor to the same standard anyway.
Many houses on flat coastal ground sit up off the grade so storm water runs away from them, so it is worth checking whether there is a step at the front door or the garage. A roll-in shower does little good if the chair stops at the threshold. When the entry is part of the problem, any ramp or regraded walk has to carry the chair and also shed a summer downpour away from the door.
If appointments fill certain days of your week, give us those days, and the loud work and the water shutoffs go around them. During the Gulf storm season, June through November, we also keep a plan for bathing somewhere else ready in case weather pushes a date.
A garden tub sits on a raised deck, often tiled, with its drain somewhere under that box. Once the deck is opened down to the slab, we cut out the concrete where the shower will go and pour it back lower, so the shower floor starts level with the bathroom floor and falls gently to the drain. A linear drain along the back wall lets the floor slope one way, which is easier on a wheel and keeps water from creeping out the open side.
Grab bars are only as strong as what is behind them. Before any backer board goes up, we frame solid lumber between the studs around the toilet, along the shower walls and at the entry, then photograph it so you know where it is years from now. Controls go where a seated person can reach them: a lever valve near the entry, a handheld shower on a slide bar, and a fold-down seat or a built-in bench where the transfer happens.
Then the path to the shower. A wheelchair needs about thirty-two inches of clear opening at a door, and plenty of bathroom doors in tract houses come up short once the door itself is counted. We widen the opening and swap the knobs for levers. Then we look for a five-foot circle of open floor where a chair can turn around. In a primary bath with two vanities, one of them often gives up its cabinet for knee space.
If stepping over the tub wall is the only trouble, a grab bar and a transfer bench may be enough, and we will say so before anyone cuts concrete.
Is a full conversion what you need?
Some households need the whole tub gone and the floor lowered, while others need two grab bars and a better seat, and the visit shows which.
- Getting over the side of the garden tub now takes a helper, and the person bathing would rather do it alone again.
- A wheelchair or walker is in daily use, or the doctor has said one is coming, and the bathroom is where it stops.
- There has already been a fall in the bathroom, or a close call, and everyone in the house is nervous at bath time.
- You plan to stay in this house for years, and a ground-floor bathroom is the room that has to work first.
And when it does not
- If the only bathroom that could be made accessible is upstairs, reworking it solves little, and a ground-floor plan has to come first.
- If the condition is changing quickly, wait for the therapist’s notes, because a shower built around this month may not fit next year.
- If a VA grant or another program might help pay, hold the start date until their paperwork is open, so our scope matches what they review.
From the first visit to the first shower
- I
Watch, then measure
We sit down with the person who will use the room, plus whoever helps at bath time, and walk the house the way they move through it. If an occupational therapist has written recommendations, we read them first and build to them. The tape measure comes out after that.
- II
Scope and paperwork
The written scope lists every dimension, the slab cut, the blocking locations and each fixture. If the VA or another program may help with the cost, tell us at that first visit, and we write the scope to line up with their forms. Whether they pay is their decision.
- III
Open the deck, lower the slab
The garden tub and its tiled deck come out, the slab is cut where the shower goes, the drain moves, and the plumbing is inspected before the concrete goes back in lower. Blocking goes into the open walls before any board covers them.
- IV
Try it before we leave
Once the tile, the seat and the controls are in, the person who uses the shower rolls or walks into it with us standing there. If a bar is wrong for their good hand or the seat sits too low, we move it before calling the job done.
Questions for you and your helper
- Do you use a wheelchair, a walker or a cane, and which one at bath time?
- Which side is stronger when you stand up or transfer?
- Has an occupational therapist given you written recommendations for the bathroom?
- Does anyone help you bathe, and where do they need to stand?
- Is the VA or another program involved in paying for any of this?
How far does the slab have to be lowered for a curbless shower?
Only enough for the floor to fall toward the drain, about a quarter inch per foot, starting flush with the bathroom floor. We cut out the shower area, set the drain lower and pour back a sloped bed, so the tile on top ends up level right where you roll in.
Will water get out of a shower with no curb?
Not when the floor is sloped right. A linear drain catches water across the whole width of the shower, and a weighted curtain or a short fixed glass panel keeps spray off the bathroom floor. We also tip the first stretch of bathroom floor slightly toward the shower.
Can grab bars be added after the remodel?
Yes, as long as blocking is already in the wall, which is why we put solid wood behind the tile in more places than you need today. A bar screwed only into tile and drywall, or held on with suction cups, will pull loose the first time someone leans on it.
What is a transfer bench, and do I need a built-in seat instead?
A transfer bench straddles the tub or shower edge so you can sit down outside and slide across. In a roll-in shower, a fold-down seat bolted into blocking or a tiled bench usually takes its place. Which one works better depends on your balance and on whether someone helps you.
Do you work from an occupational therapist’s plan?
Gladly. A therapist who has watched you move sees things a tape measure misses, like which hand you trust and how far you can reach while seated. If you have their notes, we build to them. If you do not, ask your doctor or the VA about a referral before we draw anything.
If the VA is helping pay, what do you need from me?
Tell us at the first visit and bring whatever paperwork you already have. We write the scope and the measurements so they match what the program asks to see. Eligibility and how much gets paid are decided by the VA or the program, and we will not promise you either one.
Whose name is on this job
Leland Cannon founded Veteran Built after twenty-one years in the Army, retiring as a First Sergeant, and both owners are veterans. On this kind of work that matters more than it does on a roof. A conversation about bathing, a fall or a chair coming into the house gets handled plainly and privately, and only the people who need to know hear about it.
What we bring to an Arcola bathroom is a written scope you can hand to a caseworker, a work area closed off at the end of every day, and a straight answer on whether the full conversion is worth doing at all. Leland or Geoff walks the room before anything is priced, and one of them comes back to check the grab bar blocking before it disappears behind tile.